As we found out a couple of weeks ago, this is not the church's official position. It is not a mortal sin to vote for a politician that supports choice. The Vatican clarified this over that lawsuit that was to be filed to excommunicate Kerry. Only having an abortion and helping someone procure an abortion are mortal sins.
"As we found out a couple of weeks ago, this is not the church's official position. It is not a mortal sin to vote for a politician that supports choice. The Vatican clarified this over that lawsuit that was to be filed to excommunicate Kerry. Only having an abortion and helping someone procure an abortion are mortal sins."
I fear the Vatican's position was too nuanced to prevent misprision.
It boils down to this: when a Catholic voter is faced with a choice between a politician who is a step better than the opponent on abortion, even if he is less strongly against it than we might hope, the Catholic is not rendered unable to vote for either, but can vote for the better candidate as a step in the right direction.
In no way does the Vatican's statement allow a Catholic to support abortion, which is this woman's position.
And despite how this priest's homily was reported, I'd bet dollars to bellybutton lint that if you asked him, "Can we vote for Bush even though he supports abortion under the 3 circumstances, because he's so much better on the issue than Kerry," the priest would say, "Certainly," and that he never meant to imply otherwise.
In no way does the Vatican's statement permit a Catholic to disregard the issue of abortion in the interest of furthering other, less vital agendas. It says that *if* there were an issue of equal or greater importance, then those issues might offset or even override the issue of abortion.
In this election, however, such an issue does not exist, and it *is* a mortal sin to vote for Kerrey, just as it was to vote for Gore, and for Clinton before him.